ECONOMY/FEDERAL RESERVE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump has been lashing out at the Federal Reserve for months, pressing the central bank to halt its campaign of interest rate hikes. He could soon get his way. The Fed has been steadily increasing rates over the past couple of years on the belief that the economic recovery finally has enough legs to do without the near-zero rates that persisted for nearly a decade since the financial crisis. But with global growth slowing, trade tensions simmering and the effects of the Fed’s own policies starting to take hold, the central bank is increasingly taking a cautious approach to forecasting rate hikes beyond the one that’s widely expected later this month. In other words, the Fed will stop if U.S. economic growth cools — probably not the scenario envisioned by Trump, who once suggested the central bank was raising rates because ‘they think our economy is too good.’”
–Victoria Guida, “Trump may get his wish on pause in Fed rate hikes,” Politico, December 4, 2018 5:58 pm